PTSD

Trauma, as defined by Webster Dictionary, is a “painful emotional experience or shock, often producing a lasting effect.”

Trauma is usually associated with events like war, accidents, natural disasters such as earthquakes or pandemics.

It also results from abusive relationships from family or intimate relationships.

When left untreated, trauma can have prolonged, lasting emotional damage, which is medically recognized as PTSD or post traumatic stress disorder.

Much of what I do as a psychotherapist deals with psycho-trauma experienced by individuals, couples, and families. Mostly, they’re associated with PTSD.

PTSD is more damaging and more difficult to treat when:

• the traumas happened or continue to happen over a prolonged period of time, usually over 6 months;

• the traumas are of human causes or origins, arising from social relationships;

• those around the traumatized person tend to deny or ignore the existence of the abuse or stress

Martin, a physically and emotionally abused youth, is generally shut down. Emotionally distant and uninvolved in the world. During sessions, he has a hard time connecting to his own feelings.

The “psychic numbing” is often a part of PTSD, similar to the reaction soldiers experience during and after combat.

A person with PTSD is likely to continue to experience its psychic effects for a lifetime ... until he starts a deep process of psychological recovery.